Sonoma County reports three COVID-19 deaths, boosting pandemic toll to 347

Sonoma County public health officials Tuesday reported three more deaths because of the coronavirus, boosting virus-related fatalities in August to 12 and the pandemic death toll since March 2020 to 347.

The fatalities are part of an ongoing summer surge of COVID-19 infections and hospitalizations driven by the highly contagious delta strain of the virus.

Also, Mendocino County public health officials reported another death, the county’s 59th during the public health crisis.

Rampant transmission of the delta variant has led to regional levels of pandemic-related hospitalizations not seen since winter. On Monday, 81 people infected by COVID-19 were hospitalized in Sonoma County, 16 of them in intensive care, according to the latest state public health data.

Dr. Sundari Mase, the county’s health officer, said a growing number of younger people are dying from the coronavirus, the vast majority of them unvaccinated.

“I’m really concerned because we’re seeing deaths predominantly in the unvaccinated,” Mase said. “These are tragic, tragic preventable deaths, and I just wish that everyone in the county would get vaccinated.”

All three deaths Sonoma County officials reported Tuesday involved people with significant underlying medical conditions. Two were unvaccinated, a man between 18 and 49 and a woman between 50 and 64, and they died at local hospitals on Aug. 4 and 12, respectively.

Another man over 64, who was vaccinated, also died at a local hospital on Aug. 18.

Deaths are expected to continue to mount the remainder of this month and into September, public health officials said, because fatalities typically lag virus-related hospitalizations a few weeks.

After only a single local death attributed to COVID-19 in May, fatalities have spiked this summer as certain area residents have resisted getting vaccinated. Four county residents died from complications of the virus in June, then 16 in July, followed by the dozen so far this month.

The latest virus-related fatality in Mendocino County was an 88-year-old Covelo woman who was not inoculated against the pathogen.

You can reach Staff Writer Martin Espinoza at 707-521-5213 or martin.espinoza@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @pressreno.